Computer systems contain large amounts of information. This information includes personal information, such as financial information, customer/client/patient contact information, business information, audio/visual information, and much more. This information also includes information related to the correct operation of the computer system, such as operating system files, application files, user settings, and so on. With the increased reliance on computer systems to store critical information, the importance of protecting information has grown. Traditional storage systems receive an identification of a file to protect, and then create one or more secondary copies, such as backup files, containing the contents of the file. These secondary copies can then later be used to restore the original data should anything happen to the original data.
In the recent years, business organizations have seen an explosive growth in the number of computing platforms that operate within the organization's work facilities. Large volumes of data are routinely generated, stored and retrieved from storage devices. Often, the data includes critical information, without which, the operation of a business organization may suffer. In spite of the criticality of data to the operation, businesses often do not have the resources or the expertise to manage data, including operations such as regular backups and data recovery.